2012 NFL Draft: Value Draft Grades

Oh, the age old tradition of immediately grading a draft class that hasn’t even taken the field for practice yet.

Everyone does it, and I understand why. We’ve watched these players all year and we all have our perception of them and their talent. The problem is, NFL teams know more than us. They’ve also seen more and better tape and there are players every year that we haven’t heard of.

Instead of doing the regular A-F grading scale, I decided to come up with my own system.

I ranked 250 players this year before the draft. Any player that was drafted above my ranking, gets the difference in a negative score, any player that was drafted below my ranking gets the difference in a positive score. All undrafted players are scored as though they were the 254th player drafted and any player that I did not rank and did not watch enough tape to rank gets an incomplete, or no score at all. I figured this was a way to grade the draft based on my perceived “value.” The only “opinion” I put into these grades was pre-draft.

It’s not a perfect system, since it’s all based on my opinion and players taken early that should be taken early don’t get a positive grade. The main part was that I didn’t want to punish teams for drafting players that I didn’t watch enough.

(Ex. Luke Kuechly was taken 9th, he was my 15th ranked player, that selection gets a -6. Devon Still was taken 53rd, he was my 14th ranked player, that selection gets a 39. Chris Polk went undrafted, he was my 46th ranked player, that selection gets a (254-46) 208.

If you want to see my full top 250, plus every player drafted and color coded, go here.

The Eagles get the top score, mostly because of a great UDFA class. Chris Polk alone got a 208. Brandon Boykin, Marvin McNutt and Brandon Washington were also great late round picks that I had ranked far higher.

This truly hurts to see the Jets graded out so high, but once again, it’s because of a solid UDFA class. I had Stephen Hill graded as a late second round pick, but that was one of the few picks that earned a negative score.

This is another one that hurts, you never like to see the Steelers come out of a draft with this type of class. DeCastro, Adams and Ta’amu were among my favorite picks in this class. I wasn’t a big fan of the limited tape I saw of Toney Clemons. Brandon Lindsey was a pretty perplexing UDFA.

It’s no surprise that the Packers came out of this class near the top. Nick Perry and Casey Hayward were major steals in my opinion. BJ Coleman was placed in the perfect opportunity, Dale Moss is a highly athletic UDFA.

This one surprised me a little, but Chase Minnifield helped a lot earning 178 points. I was a big fan of Keenan Robinson and Tom Compton as well. To prove that this system holds no bias, I hated the Kirk Cousins pick.

I was perplexed that Jamell Fleming fell so far on draft boards. I saw a great zone corner with some of the smoothest hips in the class. Bobby Massie fell further than most had him ranked and Ryan Lindley was a nice late round pickup.

The hometown boys get the twelve spot, mostly due to 7th rounder Alfonzo Dennard. The fact that I hadn’t watched a lot of tape on Tavon Wilson, Nate Ebner and Jeremy Ebert certainly helped, as they all received incompletes or zeros.

I’d also like a moment of silence for the poor young men drafted by NYJ. Keep some cologne on a hankie incase Rex should remove his footwear. Don’t worry, you’ll probably have a new coach before your contract ends.

So what your saying is to totally disregard these “rankings” because they are based on what an amateur thinks about the players values? Okay cool, because I hope you wouldn’t actually want anyone to believe that you know more than professional nfl talent evaluators.

Doug:
Your spread sheet has one omission who would add value
points for the Patriots, Marcus Forston. He was rated 107th
best player by Great Blue North. This was much higher than any of the Jets UDFAs.

Doug is being criticized for really nothing. He came up with the system of ranking and based on that quantitative systemm came out with a ranking. It is what it is. He is not saying this is the end all or be all of ranking. He can only watch the tape of so many players. It may take him weeks to implement alternative methods so not practical with his time. If you had a better way to systematically rank them, you should suggest what that is.

I prefer the intuition ranking. Going with your gut feel. I couldn’t do that for every team or player except maybe pick out which five teams had the best draft at most although maybe Doug can.

Doug is in information overload and that can be a disadvantage in seeing the forest. He may know too much. I got another suggestion for Doug. Rate the teams based only on draft and not UDFA and only rate on 4 best players selected. Then throw in some intuition. If a team gets 4 players that work for them, it is a home run draft.

It will take three years to determine if this years pats draft was a success or not. by then, we will have gone through: countless players, three more drafts, three more seasons records and post season play…so no one will really be able to focus on the 2012 draft results in 2015 unless they go hide in a box for that time period. By then BB and TB will be retired and a totally new focus will result. If they win one SB between now and then, I will be satisfied.

“I ranked 250 players this year before the draft. Any player that was drafted above my ranking, gets the difference in a negative score, any player that was drafted below my ranking gets the difference in a positive score. All undrafted players are scored as though they were the 254th player drafted and any player that I did not rank and did not watch enough tape to rank gets an incomplete, or no score at all. I figured this was a way to grade the draft based on my perceived “value.” The only “opinion” I put into these grades was pre-draft.”

I understand your point and I did read your intro. If you put it this way – I believe the Bills whom until now have had disastrous drafts, have done a good job this year. But you can also pick up great value in firsts and second and big flops as well, that’s what I’m trying to say. Like the Jets who drafted Sanchez, Keller, Wilson and Wilkerson, those are busts. But I don’t agree on the Jets. I’m not hating on them, I just don’t believe they are that high. But you do a good job btw

This doesn’t belong in this discussion, but I want to write this now because it’s just great info, and I was listening to the radio and heard some good stuff.

On the Wilson pick in the 2nd round:

I watched the Parcells ESPN special again this year and he offered another great point this year (last year he summed up the rookie pay scale in billions of dollars…or some fraction…lost to first rounders…gave the actual stats/$$$ over the last 5 years or so…great stuff; especially on why the Pats always dropped out). This year he mentioned that if he were coaching today he would have 3 corners on the field on first down, always. He would drop a safety…deal with passing on first down, and not the run etc…

I feel this brings some insight as to why BB took Wilson so high. The kid has the hybrid body of a safety/corner, more so, he’s played both and both sides (and special teams). He’s a 4.5 guy, but is a solid 205 with no health issues.
I think he wants someone like that to mold into that position Parcells was talking about…but, as a new hybrid player…disguise ability, position flexibility…can cover, move to corner, play safety in the box, whatever…

I doubt highly that he just took some kid for the hell of it…he, and his staff probably looked long & hard for such a player and they decided on Wilson.

The second part of this was the fact that they (this came from the radio caller) had only 2 picks left in the draft. So, they didn’t want to mess around, probably didn’t get a call back on any draft down attempts, so they pulled the trigger because that was their guy for this new player-type. Then, they went to work on getting that trade-down and made that happen.

I’ve noticed in all these grades being done that the teams that come with the higher grades are the ones that seem to follow the mock world.
For example, Philly is getting “A’s” across the board and high praise. I happen to agree…I like what they did.
But, I think it’s less about talent and more about having their picks reflect the opinion of the Kipers and all the other mockers.
All it will take for their draft to suck, in reality, is for Cox to simply be an average D-lineman…a JAG, and maybe for Kendricks to play as an under-sized MLB and be abused by larger receivers & TE’s in the league. That’s not such a stretch…
Right now they’re both going to the Hall of Fame. Why, because it’s what we all thought would happen, so there’s some ego thing going on.

Relax everybody, much like all the so-called “experts” (Kiper et al) this list is also put together by someone that is not:

1 NFL head coach
2 NFL GM
3 NFL Player Dev.
4 NFL Scout
5 or even a secretary with any team

An example of how arbitrary any evaluation at this point is, consider that Belichick assigns a “value” to a possible pick dependant on how they feel the player would perform in their system, at a position, in that year. The “value” is not based on hype/atheletic abilityl/actual game performances/senior bowl/combine. Some clubs will also base the “value” on possible future development.

I need to speak to Doug here for a moment…
I did read what you are doing…pretty cool, and I will probably comment below, but I feel that many of these strong comments are the result of so many draftniks feeling a bit foolish following the actual draft.
I know I’m feeling a bit silly….ranking players and seeing them fall out of the draft completely…there are too many examples to mention.
To sum it up, there seems to be a phenomenon on all these sites of mimicking and slotting players to a certain ranking. The best example (and it’s exaggerated) that comes to mind is Burfict…he was on most all first or second round mocks up until a month ago, or so, mostly slotted to the Ravens. Now, was this because he resembles an aging Lewis in his vocal game, or because he actually has the skill to play MLB in the NFL? More so, was it because everyone just kept saying to themselves, “this looks like a good pick for the Ravens and everyone else has him there so it must have some validity”?
I’ve said this before on this site, and others, that we don’t know the medicals, we don’t know the interview (detective work) etc…But, how many of us really know NFL talent? To start with, it’s 50/50 odds for the best in the business who have access to the medicals, interviews, team plans etc…
But, it’s fun, and I appreciate this site and all the hard work, fact gathering (lots of good stuff this year), and the friendly discussion.

I personally don’t feel foolish at all after the draft. 65 players that I didn’t rank got drafted. As one person, I can’t get to every player and I don’t feel comfortable ranking players I didn’t watch enough of. I have no problem ranking 188/253 players drafted.

I rank players based on how I think they will do in the NFL, not based on where I think they’ll be drafted. I’ll feel much better if I nail every late round steal than whether those guys went in the first round.

As for Burfict, that was a product of perceived need, plus a bit of group think, plus his 2010 tape. He played much worse in 2011, acted out more, and then finally dropped due to his workouts.

The Bills last??? Come on. There picks 3,4,5th round picks will all be contributors. Gimore is a reach, but a very good player.

Patriots only had 1st round with any quality, and completely blew the 2nd round. The FA they signed at the end were far better than the 6th, 7th round picks. I don’t get that. I rate them a C- at best.